Dirty Blonde

CHAPTER 37

It was almost dark by the time Cate was back in the car, driving south toward the Holiday Inn in Frackville. Trees etched crooked black lines against the overcast sky, an odd gray-purple that deepened to ink behind the mountains. The temperature had dropped to twenty-eight degrees, according to the car thermometer, and the tires rumbled where cold tread met salted road. Only a few cars traveled Route 61, and there was an old black Continental behind her.

Don’t touch that

Cate had spent the afternoon looking at the photos Ed had taken. Her heart felt full and her head tired. An emotional exhaustion weakened every muscle in her body. Ed had served her a thick cheeseburger and a hot coffee, which revived her for the drive. He’d also given her a full box of photographs, and it sat beside her on the passenger’s seat, along with something else, something even more precious, which gave her a purpose.

Don’t touch that

Cate kept her foot on the gas as an old Continental switched into the fast lane to pass her. Her thoughts rumbled along. She would never have guessed that her father had been a bootlegger. Her mother had carried that pain to her grave, lying now beside the child whose death she believed she’d caused.

Don’t touch that

Cate bit her lip, driving down into the next valley, where it grew darker. She had always sensed the whispers about her and her mother, and thought it was because her mother wanted more for her. But maybe the gossip was about her father. Bootlegging couldn’t have been an easy secret to keep in a town of miners. No one would have been fooled by their secret; no one except their three-year-old.

The Continental switched lanes to get in front of her, its red taillights vivid in the darkness, two round red eyes against the black. Cate flashed on a fleeting memory. The red-eyed monster with the black face, her childhood fear. She’d seen it in her house, coming through the front door at night. She’d run screaming to her mother.

Just your eyes, playin’ tricks on you

Cate stared into the red taillights of the black car. It wasn’t a monster coming through their front door-it was a miner. Coming home from bootlegging, his face black with coal dust. His eyes red and irritated. Her father. It all made sense, jibing with what Ed had told her. So many secrets, consuming them all as a family, burning them alive in a town of fire.

A passing truck jolted Cate out of her reverie, and she decreased her speed, approaching Centralia. Steam rose like ghosts from the earth, and it killed her to think that her father had contributed to this calamity, and her mother had been complicit. She steered the car through steam, hot and wet enough to leave momentary condensation on the windshield, and began the drive up the hill to St. Ignatius Cemetery. She parked outside the gates, set her emotions aside, and cut the ignition, then grabbed what she needed, and got out of the car.

The frigid air hit her in the face, more brutally than it had this morning, and she walked up the center aisle of the graveyard, yanking her coat close to her neck and trying not to breathe. It was almost dark, and steam rose everywhere, rolling in eerie drifts across the marble gravestones and shrouding the stone crucifixes. Cate froze at a shadow behind the smoke. Then it was gone.

Just your eyes, playin’ tricks on you

Cate steeled herself. She had something important to do. The task wouldn’t get easier, and the sky wouldn’t get lighter. She made her way to her mother’s grave, and its smooth rose marble seemed to glow in the lessening light, as if the memorial had managed to marshal every last particle of luminescence.

Cate blinked back tears, feeling more fully than ever how much she loved her mother, and how sorry she felt for all her suffering, so needless. Even now that she knew her secret, and her sacrifice, too.

“You should have kept this, Mom,” Cate whispered, bending over and plunging her fingers into the cold snow, then burrowing deeper, until she hit earth, scratching a tiny hole. Then she took the small black box containing the engagement ring and placed it inside the hole, burying it with snow. “I love you.” She wiped her eyes and turned to go. It was getting dark fast, and colder, and she was beginning to feel woozy and nauseated from the gas.

Good-bye, Mom.

Cate made her way down the road, her feet getting colder in the soaked sneakers. She reached the gates and headed toward the car, digging in her pockets for the keys. Smoke rose around her, and she held her nose, accidentally dropping the keys. Damn. She squinted at the snowy ground in the dark. A wave of smoke obscured her view, and she got a powerful whiff of toxins. Cate waited for the nausea to pass, but it didn’t. She bent over but couldn’t see the keys in the snow, even though the black plastic should have been easy to spot. She plunged her hands into the nearest snowdrift as she heard the sound of a car coming up the road.

Two headlights, on high beams, appeared over the crest of the hill, and Cate took advantage of the temporary illumination to search the snow. She kept fishing and heard the sound of the car as it accelerated. She looked up, struck by a vague sense of alarm. The car was going too fast to make the sharp turn down the new part of Route 61. She could get hit if it didn’t turn soon.

Cate straightened up, and what happened next went so fast she couldn’t do anything but react. The car gunned its engine, accelerating. The dark hood sped toward her with frightening speed.

Cate heard herself scream and sprang out of the way, diving headlong into the plowed snow by the side of the road. She rolled away just as the car zoomed past her, spraying snow and salt into her face, aiming straight for the Mercedes.

Metal crashed into metal with an ear-splitting bam! The dark car slammed into the Mercedes’s trunk. The impact sent the car sliding into a snowbank. Exhaust filled Cate’s face, and she screamed again, scrambling frantically away. She popped bolt upright in time to see the car’s red taillights as it sped away, careering crazily down Route 61.

Her heart jumped through her coat. She was too stunned to think. Her stomach roiled in protest. She scrambled to her feet, brushing wet snow from her cheek and digging a clump from her neck. Snow soaked her sweatpants and covered her coat. What was going on? She could have been killed. Hadn’t the driver seen her? Was he drunk?

She ran to the Mercedes and saw its back end smashed. The trunk lid had popped up, but the front end of the car looked untouched. She could still drive it if she could find the damn keys. She had to get out of here. Her phone was locked in the car. There were no police in Centralia. She was too far from any of the few remaining houses, even if they were occupied. Her car would signal Roadside Assistance, but it could take forever for a tow truck to get here.

Suddenly she heard a car coming back up the road. Her gut tensed. Two headlights popped over the crest of the hill from the other way. She couldn’t tell if it was the same car. If it was the same driver, he already knew she was here. If it wasn’t, she’d get the help she needed.

“Help! Help!” Cate hurried around the Mercedes and waved her arms frantically. It was a dark car. She couldn’t tell the make. The driver switched his high beams on. She waved, ducking behind her car just in case. “Please! Help!”

Suddenly the dark car charged the Mercedes, its engine roaring.

“No!” Cate screamed at the top of her lungs, jumping backwards as the dark car barreled into the Mercedes. She was almost pulled under her car as it piled her way, but staggered backwards. She caught a glimpse of the driver, his teeth clenched in rage. Russo.

“Help!” Cate screamed at the top of her lungs, her desperation echoing through the hills. He must have followed her up here.

She took off in sheer panic. Smoke wafted around her. Muddling her thinking. Intensifying her nausea. The car gunned its engine, and she ran for her life, stumbling in her wet sneakers. She stopped screaming. No help would come. She’d have a better chance if she didn’t betray her position. Her breath went ragged as it hit the icy air, mixing with a swirl of toxic fumes.

A phosphorescent sign stood in her path. DANGER! GROUND PRONE TO SUDDEN COLLAPSE! DANGEROUS GASES PRESENT! The sign stood at the north end of the old Route 61, now closed off. Cate knew the old route by heart, and it gave her an idea.

She ran past the sign, her breathing labored in the poisonous air. Russo must have been reading her mind, because in the next second, she saw his car, visible by its headlights, driving over the hump placed as a barrier at the head of the old Route 61. The car’s grille bounced as it bounded past the sign, spraying snow from its tires. Russo was going to run her down or get close enough to shoot her. But Cate knew this terrain. She fought to think through her confusion. She could see the stripped tree trunks in front of her, black shadows against the snow. She prayed the ground didn’t collapse beneath her.

She bolted behind the cemetery, her hands hitting stray branches. She fell in the snow, then got up. She climbed higher up the hillside she knew was there. It was the only point on the summit higher than the cemetery. She’d played on it all the time as a kid, since it was so near school. She tried to run fast and lightly, so the ground wouldn’t give way under her. Darkness descended, the higher she climbed. The only illumination came from below, the headlights of the dark car as it swung around. The high beams swept beneath her, cutting a lethal swath through the smoky air.

Go, go, go. It was pitch black, no streetlights or highway lights. No moon. Nothing to delineate the terrain to anybody who didn’t know every inch of it. Her heart hammered. She kept running alongside the hill, not wanting to go too high, because the land fell off behind. She prayed she was remembering right. Fumes filled her nostrils. She couldn’t think.

Russo drove below, going straight, approximating the road she knew curved sharply off to the right. He wouldn’t see that. The road followed the curve of the mountain. He wouldn’t anticipate that. It was her only chance.

Cate watched him slow his speed, looking for her. Smoke surrounded them, obscuring everything. The mine fire raged underneath. Russo stopped at a smoking rent in the road, the asphalt ruptured like an earthquake. Cate prayed he fell in from his car’s weight. She covered her nose to keep her wits about her.

Russo careened around the steaming fissure. Cate bolted along the hillside, bracing herself on dead trees, trying not to breathe too deeply. Russo caught up to her on a parallel track. Almost time to put her plan into action. Soon Russo would get out of the car and hunt her down on foot. She ran harder, panting.

Now!

Cate ran down the hill in the dark, wet and bedraggled, kicking up snow all around her. She cut the mountain at a diagonal toward the car, then half-ran, half-stumbled down onto the unplowed road.

The engine gunned. Russo accelerated toward her. Snow pinwheeled from the tires, and Cate took advantage of her brief head start. She gathered all her strength and bolted across the front of the car. The car burst forward but she was past.

Crak! A gunshot exploded over her shoulder. Cate screamed in terror. A bullet seared her cheek. Now! She threw herself down onto the hill and dove into the snow, grabbing for a tree trunk. She hugged it with all her might and scrambled for purchase with her feet.

In the next second, Russo followed her at top speed. Old Route 61 curved to the right under the snow, but Cate had led him to the left. It had worked. The dark car sailed right over her head. She buried her face in the snow. Heat, dirt, stones, and pebbles rained down on her like a storm from hell.

The car flew over the side of the hill, into thin air. The next sound she heard was Russo’s scream, joining another’s. Hers. Then the hideous crash of his car smashing into the highway below. Debris and broken branches roiled down the hill around her head. In the next minute, everything fell quiet. Russo couldn’t hurt her anymore.

Cate should have felt horror, or relief, but a terrible sleepiness took over. Smoke curled from the wooded embankment. Fog clogged her nostrils. Tears filled her eyes. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t muster up a single thought.

She felt distanced from herself. She didn’t know if Russo had survived the crash or if he had died. Her consciousness dissolved into smoke. She told herself to hold on to the tree but her grip began to loosen. Her sopping sneaker lost its foothold.

Her eyes closed drowsily. She was so very tired. It had been a long, long day. If she could only put her head down and rest. On a pillow. On a shoulder. A man’s shoulder. Not Graham’s.

Nesbitt’s.

Don’t touch that